


i'm here but my mind's far away

by viccristak



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 18:13:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10195979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viccristak/pseuds/viccristak
Summary: After the Winter Palace, Mahanon thinks about his clan and his sister. He talks to Varric about it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is like. my first fanfic ever so bear with me. english isn't my first language and none beta'd this so soz for any mistakes

Mahanon missed being with the clan. He missed leading a hunting party through the forest, the smell of fresh flowers blooming in the spring, how alive he felt when he was out in the woods: in perfect harmony with the trees and the animals. He missed coming back to the camp at night after a particularly rough hunting party, with a few scratches on his body, only to find Ayesha awake in their tent waiting for him. She always did. She couldn’t sleep until he told her a story; about elven culture or simply a light-hearted anecdote about the day. And he did it, of course, no matter how tired he was. She never took more than ten minutes to fall asleep to his soothing voice, anyway.

At least Skyhold felt more like home. The huge gardens and the view of the endless sky made Mahanon regain the sense of peace he’d had back in the clan. Haven was too cold, too white. And it felt lonelier. After closing the breach, he thought he could finally get back to the Free Marches, reunite with his clan, with his sister, help them rebuild and move onto another place, because he knew they had been having problems with demons. But of course, fate works in cruel ways. If he wanted to save his people back home, he had to stay with the Inquisition. But not only that: they made him the leader. A beast in the forest, with a few hunter bows looking to him for directions? That he could deal with. A whole organization? The whole fucking world on his shoulders, counting on him to make the decisions that mattered? That terrified him.

Is that really what the creators had planned for him all along? Mahanon had always found comfort in his faith, but lately he wasn’t sure what to even believe anymore and that made him uneasy. It was even worse when he had to deal with Sera’s sporadic comments about his culture, which he was very proud of. He understood her, in a way, but it still unnerved him. He wished she would understand him, too, or at least try to.

“Hey kid,” he heard Varric said behind him. “That was some show at the Winter Palace, huh?”

He knew Varric would find him. He was at the battlements where the dwarf had first introduced him to Hawke. Varric knew that was the place where the Inquisitor liked to go when the responsibilities he bore overwhelmed him. After everything that had happened at the Winter Palace, Varric didn’t have to think hard about where he could have gone.

“I bet you could write an entire novel about it,” the elf replied.

Varric laughed. “I don’t think my readers would be interested in some political Orlesian bullshit,” he said, shaking his head. He approached Mahanon and smirked up at him. “That marvellous last dance at the end with Sparkler, though? Now that would get me a few coins.”

The Inquisitor blushed. His dance with Dorian had been the one thing he had liked about that eventful evening. “Well, Cassandra would certainly buy it,” he said, smirking.

Varric snorted. “Can’t argue with that.”

Mahanon sighed, going back to his thoughts about his clan. As much as he cared about the friends he had made in the Inquisition, about Dorian… his clan was his whole life. He would do anything for them. He was supposedly saving the world, but he still felt like he was betraying them by not being there.

“What you thinking about, kid?” asked Varric, in a softer tone. He loved how the dwarf treated him just like another one of his friends. It made him feel like the weight on his shoulders was a little less heavy when talking to him.

“My clan,” he answered. “My friends. My family.” Mahanon ran a hand through his face, exhausted. He hadn’t had a good night sleep in so long. Having Dorian move in to his quarters officially helped, but only for a few hours, until the nightmares began again. He wasn’t selfish enough to tell the mage about that, though.

“You have family?”

“A sister,” he said, smiling. His smile was sad, melancholic, but it was still one of the most genuine ones Varric had ever seen in him. “Her name is Ayesha. I had just started to teach her how to use a bow when the Keeper told me I was needed at the Conclave. I hated leaving her.” The elf’s smile turned into a frown. “I hate being away from her,” he added, a bitterness to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“Why don’t you have her join us, then? I bet she would be fun to have around,” proposed Varric.

“No way,” Mahanon said. “It’s too dangerous. She’s safer with the clan, unaware of all this.”

“No offense, kid, but I’m sure she has a pretty good idea of what’s going on with her brother,” Varric pointed out.

“I know that,” Mahanon replied, somehow aggressively. Varric was taken aback; the Inquisitor had never been anything other than nice to him. The elf’s expression turned softer then, and he apologized. “It’s just... I’ve never been away from her for so long. And my clan, my sister… they are the reason I’m doing this. I never asked to be the saviour of the fucking world. But the anchor in my hand forces me to be. I’m no hero. I don’t want to be. I wish people would understand that.” His voice held a hint of desperation, now. Varric could probably write a novel based on the sad crinkle of the frown that sat upon the Inquisitor’s face, about how it made him look much older than he truly was.

“Well, after all this is over, I’m sure she’d love for you to make her as good a shooter as you are with the bow,” said Varric.

“She could never be as good as me,” he retorted, teasing. Varric was happy to see that genuine smile return to his face. “She’s about 4 years younger than me, and I’m all she’s ever known,” he continued. He wasn’t looking at the dwarf anymore, his gaze upon the horizon, remembering his sister’s clear blue eyes and tan skin, much like his. “Our father died when I was little, before she was even born, and our mother died giving birth to her. But that didn’t really matter,” he added, “the clan was – is – our family.”

“That sounds nice,” commented Varric. “What’s your sister like, then?”

Mahanon smiled. He was no longer in Skyhold, but instead in the woods, hunting a wolf, with Ayesha and a few of their friends following close behind. “I first took her to a hunting party a few days before I had to leave for the shemlen conclave,” he spoke, finally. “She had only just learnt how to grab a bow properly, but I knew I had to leave soon, and I had no idea when I would get the chance to explore the forest with her,” he sighed, a lump starting to form on his throat. At the time, the only reason he had thought that is because the journey to Haven – and back – would take him more than a few days. Clearly, things hadn’t gone as planned. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before going on. “I had to watch her closely, reprimanding her for being too loud and getting distracted.” He chuckled at a particular memory. “She kept stopping to smell the blooming flowers. There were some around our camp, of course, but none that could top the beauty of the exotic plants that are in the forest.”

Varric raised a brow. “Does our inquisitor like flowers?”

Mahanon blushed for the second time in the evening. “What if I do?” He tried to come off as intimidating, but failed. It was in these moments when Varric remembered Inquisitor was just a title the world had put on the elf’s shoulders. As he’d told him before, after a Wicked Grace game that had ended with Cullen running naked all over Skyhold, it was easy to forget he led the entire Inquisition.

“Everyone has their weird hobbies, I guess,” joked Varric.

The Inquisitor rolled his eyes. “It’s not a hobby and it’s not weird.”

“I bet you could tell all the names of the flowers in Skyhold,” the dwarf continued to tease him, smirking.

Mahanon’s cheeks turned even redder, but he didn’t deny it. They were quiet for a while after that, the elf’s thoughts going back to his sister, the teasing moment between the two friends forgotten.

“She’s going to get her vallaslin soon,” Mahanon finally broke the silence. Varric let him talk. “I should be there.” He closed his hand in a fist, tightly, that feeling of powerlessness coming back to him again all at once. “I should be there,” he repeated.

“What you’re doing here is helping her more than anything else you could ever do, kid,” Varric said, sympathetic. “Don’t torture yourself like that.”

“Are you getting soft on me?” teased Mahanon, purposefully ignoring what the dwarf had said, not wanting to dwell on it for the moment.

Varric chuckled. “Someone has to keep you in line.”

“Dorian has that covered,” replied the Inquisitor automatically. That got a full, long laugh out of Varric.

They stood there for a few more minutes in silence again until, this time, Varric broke it. “Alright, kid, I think it’s time to call it a night,” he said. With a goodnight and a pat on the back, he left Mahanon to his thoughts.

Mahanon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew he couldn't possibly go back to his clan until Corypheus was defeated. That didn't stop his heart from aching everytime he thought about Ayesha. How to use the bow wasn't the only skill she was starting to learn when he left; she was also learning how to cook a meal (and deal with an animal's flesh), craft armours and clothes and basically everything else you needed to know to survive in the wild. Since she was born, he'd thought about how he would help her through all of that. He kind of picked it up as he grew, going from the clan's main cook to the best craftsman whenever he liked. For Ayesha, though, he'd had somethiing different in mind. But according to the few letters he got from her, she was enjoying her learning anyway, and that put his mind somehow at ease, even though he still wished he was there with her.

That's all he could cling to: her letters and the reports from Leliana's people stationed near the camp (there was no way he would leave them unwatched after he received that urgent call for help from the Keeper). It would have to do for now.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm nervous abt posting this but!! anyways. i had all these ideas about Mahanon's past and feelings and i had to write them down. Varric calls him kid affectionately bc he's like 22 and has a baby face lmao. comments and feedback is apprecciated!!  
> also recently made a new tumblr blog https://isabelahawkes.tumblr.com/ pls come talk to me


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